Many cities face critical health issues, with poor air quality killing around 5.5 million people worldwide annually. In London, it is estimated that around 9,400 people die yearly due to air pollution. Taking a ‘complete streets’ approach can help address health issues and also make our cities more liveable.

We are delighted to announce the opening of our new office in Manchester, which in conjunction with our established Leeds office, extends our ability to serve all clients in the North of England, The Midlands and Wales.

Our growing Manchester team already comprises consultants with expertise spanning all modes of transport. This team can provide clients with our full range of impartial transport advice and planning services across all modes of transport, development and urban planning.

Steer Davies Gleave is delighted to announce the appointment of Maarten Wessels who joins us to further develop our technical due diligence (TDD) offer. He joins as a Principal Consultant based in our UK Advisory team and will provide TDD services in the PPP primary and secondary markets.

Delivering a reasonably accurate forecast is an important component to estimating the feasibility of a particular project or the viability of a comprehensive transport plan. In most cities, the benefits of the project or plan will depend upon an estimate of travel times on alternative modes, routes and modal shares.

We have been doing this for many years (with variable accuracy) under a broad assumption of “business as usual”; that is travel trends, capacities and mode preferences (defined by the parameters in our models) will be retained into the future.

The recent (8 November 2016) decision by the Indian government to demonetise 86% of currency notes in circulation in form of INR 500 ($7.5/£6) and INR 1000 ($15/£12) came as a shock to the Indian economy and its citizens. The government has given 50 days to deposit their old currency notes into their bank accounts with limited provisions to withdraw new or smaller denomination currency notes. With just over four weeks since the decision the final verdict on the overall impact of this move is still out there.

Pune is a major Indian city, the second largest in the western state of Maharashtra. It is a wonderful example of the vibrancy, excitement and ancient culture for which India’s cities are famous, but it suffers from all the social problems that come with the energy and color, too.

Across the world there is growing interest in the use of clean and sustainable alternatives to diesel power for public transport fleets as well as private vehicles. In 2015 there were over 1 million electric cars on the road (0.1% of the total stock) and one-fifth of the global total two-wheeler stock was electric. In addition to the private vehicle segment, both private cars and two-wheelers, electric buses are gaining more support from transport manufacturers, operators and public authorities with 19,059 electric buses being sold globally in 2015 alone.